Bud Bailey was 10 years old the day he joined a group of older kids who were hopping on a passing freight train for a little joyride. He jumped onto the first rung of a ladder on the side of the boxcar.

It was the last step he ever took with his own legs.

There was a big gap between the first and second rung, and as Bud tried to make the next step, he slipped and fell. He landed under the train, between the tracks.

Sixty-two years have passed, but Bailey remembers clearly what happened next.

The train “cut off my right leg then,” he said. “I was laying on my stomach, and I raised up, and it caught me in the back of the head. It flipped me over and cut my left one off.”

The accident happened Feb. 14, 1952 in Eckerman, a small Upper Peninsula town between Sault Ste. Marie and Newberry. The town immediately went into motion to save his life. It was the first of several times his community rallied to help him.

Bud Bailey in 1952

“They picked me up in a blanket and took me across the street to a restaurant,” Bud said.

Someone ran to tell his parents. The family had no telephone, no car. Bud’s dad was a logger, and the Baileys lived near the East Branch of the Tahquamenon River in a cabin without running water.

A man at the gas station drove Bud and his parents 40 miles to the War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie. Bud doesn’t remember much about that drive – he doesn’t recall pain, or tears or his parents’ emotional state.

His wife, Amber, who also grew up in Eckerman, said she heard that Bud’s big, powerful father sat on the floor of the back seat holding Bud. His mother hoped a doctor could sew his legs back on.

Bud also doesn’t remember whether he had tourniquets on his leg to prevent blood loss. Someone told him the train was so heavy that it sealed off the blood vessels when it cut off his legs.

He underwent surgery to close his right leg, which had been severed just above the knee. The surgeon had to wait to close the left because the injury to the tissue was so severe. The remaining leg was only 5 inches long.

Bud spent a month in the hospital. He recalls tremendous pain, his mother staying in his room with him, and nurses bringing six shots of penicillin at a time.

A lonely 18 months in rehab in Grand Rapids

Eventually, he was transferred to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids. The long car ride to Grand Rapids was provided by Michigan’s Crippled Children’s Fund, a privately-supported fund that still operates today as the Children with Special Needs Fund.

He lived at Mary Free Bed for the next year and a half, undergoing surgery at Blodgett Hospital for skin grafts, and learning to walk with prosthetic legs. The hospital had a school then, so he kept up with his studies, but he missed his parents and his sister, Bonnie, who was a year younger.

His family came down every other week to visit, but the visiting time was only two hours on Sunday afternoon. Bud, now 72, tears up as he recalls those days.

“He talks about being so lonesome for his family,” said his wife, Amber.

Bud nodded. “That has always been a problem for me.”

As Bud struggled to recover from the accident, donations were collected in Luce, Chippewa and Mackinac counties to help his parents cover the medical expenses.

“In 1952, to give 50 cents was a lot of money,” Amber said.

Newberry High School held a benefit basketball game, raising $20.78.

Loggers raise funds with 'Buddy Bailey Day'

A big boost came from a fundraiser dubbed “Buddy Bailey Day,” held March 1, 1952. Charles Taylor, a lumberman from nearby Rudyard, donated the timber harvested from 10 acres of land. Two hundred friends and neighbors showed up for a “pulpwood bee,” and in a single day, they filled five railroad cars with more than 100 cords of wood.

“Bosses were not needed, orders didn’t have to be given, only a schedule was followed for safety’s sake,” according to the Hiawathian, a publication of the Escanaba Paper Co. “For these men worked with the hearts as well as their hands and the goal was limited only by the amount of the pulpwood that the 10-acre tract would produce.”

With the sale of the pulpwood, another $2,000 was added to the Buddy Bailey Fund, bringing the total past $2,500.

After 18 months at Mary Free Bed, Bud returned home walking on two prosthetic legs – made of wood. The left was held on by straps, and the right with a suction cup. Bud also brought home a wheelchair, but he didn’t use it long. He left it outside in the rain one day, so his mother put it in the garage, and that’s where it stayed.

Bud used two canes to help him walk and, with his parents’ encouragement, he got back to all the activities he loved. He played baseball – taking a turn at bat, but letting others run for him. He shot hoops, and he fished. He didn’t know any other amputees; he was determined to fit in with everyone else.

“I thought – that was it. Make the best of it,” he said.

Walking for his diploma

On the day he graduated from high school, he was told to wait in his seat for someone to bring his diploma to him. But he had other ideas.

“Everyone else was walking for their diploma. So was I,” he said.

As he got up and climbed the rickety stairs to the stage, everyone watched in silence, recalled Amber, who was his girlfriend by then.

In the following years, Bailey studied business and accounting at Davenport College. When he landed his first job in 1972, handling billing for Bixby Office Supply, The Grand Rapids Press ran a story: “Amputee easily fills office accounting post.”

Through the years, he worked as an office manager and comptroller for various businesses and organizations, including Cedar Springs City Hall and Mary Free Bed.

He married Amber at 21, and they settled in Cedar Springs, and raised two daughters, Sheila and Ann.

“He’s a great dad. They’re great parents,” said his daughter, Sheila Wittenbach. “I never felt like my dad couldn’t do anything we wanted to do. He played ball. He wrestled with us. We went on lots of trips.”